distinguish the occasional footfalls of pedestrians. Several
times I called aloud, and once a jocular gentleman answered me, but only
to ask me where I thought he was, and then even he was swallowed up in
the silence. Just above me I could make out a jet of gas which I guessed
came from a street lamp, and I moved over to that, and, while I tried
to recover my bearings, kept my hand on the iron post. Except for this
flicker of gas, no larger than the tip of my finger, I could distinguish
nothing about me. For the rest, the mist hung between me and the world
like a damp and heavy blanket.

"I could hear voices, but I could not tell from whence they came, and
the scrape of a foot moving cautiously, or a muffled cry as some one
stumbled, were the only sounds that reached me.

"I decided that until some one took me in tow I had best remain where
I was, and it must have been for ten minutes that I waited by the lamp,
straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near me some
people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even fancied I
could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet, but I could
not make out from which part of the compass the sounds came. And
sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand, and again, to
be floating high in the air above my head. Although I was surrounded by
thousands of householders--13--I was as completely lost as though I
had been set down by night in the Sahara Desert. There seemed to be no
reason in waiting longer for an escort, so I again set out, and at once
bumped against a low iron fence. At first I believed this to be an
area railing, but on following it I found that it stretched for a long
distance, and that it was pierced at regular intervals with gates. I was
standing uncertainly with my hand on one of these when a square of light
suddenly opened in the night, and in it I saw, as you see a picture
thrown by a biograph in a darkened theatre, a young gentleman in
evening dress, and back of him the lights of a hall. I guessed from its
elevation and distance from the side-walk that this light must come
from the door of a house set back from the street, and I determined
to approach it and ask the young man to tell me where I was. But in
fumbling with the lock of the gate I instinctively bent my head, and
when I raised it again the door had partly closed, leaving only a narrow
shaft of light. Whether the young man had re-entered the house, or ha